With commercial/proprietary products, value is usually created by establishing a win-win situation: You as a customer buy something, because its value is above the price you pay for it. Pricing then essentially is about finding out what customers believe the value actually is. As long as this works, this is not a net zero, but a real win for both sides.
It appears to me as if open source tends to break this mechanism. The "customer" gets something that benefits them enormously. Meanwhile the project developers and maintainers sometimes struggle to make a living or earn amounts that seem to be out of touch with what one could earn in a comparable proprietary model. This is how it becomes a win-lose.
With certain open-source licenses, there's also a lack of incentive for giving back. Companies can often simply build proprietary solutions on top of the work of others without ever returning any reward (be it in the form of money or contributions).
It would really be great if there was a way to get the best of both worlds. I am afraid a lot of open-source software will not be produced anymore if the model isn't sustainable for developers and maintainers.
Just doing it for fun is surely feasible for some projects, but the bigger ones need full attention I'm afraid which they can't get without proper funding.
It appears to me as if open source tends to break this mechanism. The "customer" gets something that benefits them enormously. Meanwhile the project developers and maintainers sometimes struggle to make a living or earn amounts that seem to be out of touch with what one could earn in a comparable proprietary model. This is how it becomes a win-lose.
With certain open-source licenses, there's also a lack of incentive for giving back. Companies can often simply build proprietary solutions on top of the work of others without ever returning any reward (be it in the form of money or contributions).
It would really be great if there was a way to get the best of both worlds. I am afraid a lot of open-source software will not be produced anymore if the model isn't sustainable for developers and maintainers.
Just doing it for fun is surely feasible for some projects, but the bigger ones need full attention I'm afraid which they can't get without proper funding.